Online Desk:
The overall number of Covid cases has surged past 254 million amid the global race to vaccinate masses against the infectious disease.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 254,289,204 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,113,864 Wednesday morning.
The US has recorded 47,307,829 cases to date and more than 765,731 people have died so far from the virus in the country, as per the university data.
India’s Covid-19 tally rose to 34,447,536 on Tuesday, as 8,865 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, as per the federal health ministry data.
Besides, 187 deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 463,852.
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 21,965,684 cases as of Wednesday, while its Covid death toll rose to 611,478.
UK has recorded 9,686,190 cases with fatalities of 143,598 so far.
For two months now, a stubborn wave of virus infections has ripped mercilessly through several countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where vaccination rates are much lower than elsewhere on the continent, reports AP.
While medical workers pleaded for tough restrictions or even lockdowns, leaders let the virus rage unimpeded for weeks.
“I don’t believe in measures. I don’t believe in the same measures that existed before the vaccines,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said last month as the Balkan nation sustained some of its worst daily death toll of the pandemic. “Why do we have vaccines then?”
A World Health Organization official declared earlier this month that Europe is again at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. While several Western European countries are seeing spikes in infections, it is nations to the East that are driving fatalities.
Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkan states recorded some of the highest per capita death rates in the world in the first week of November, according to WHO.
